How to fix a broken emulsion

Time may mend a broken heart, but it’s not going to fix a broken emulsion. However, there are other ways to bring your sauce back together if it separates, as Chowhound’s Nikita Ephanov explains. If it’s been a while since you learned what an emulsion is in science class, here is a quick refresher: an emulsion is a mixture of two or more normally immiscible (unmixable) liquids, often bound together with an emulsifying agent. There are two basic types of emulsions: oil in water (mayonnaise, milk, hollandaise) and water in oil (butter, chocolate).

As anyone who has made hollandaise or ganache understands, emulsions are fragile balancing acts. One of many variables can go awry which will cause the emulsion to break. All is not lost, though, as you can usually coax a broken emulsion back by employing one of several fixes. The first involves the addition of an emulsifying agent such as egg yolks. Stirring a broken hollandaise gradually into egg yolks can make the sauce become smooth and creamy again. Other common emulsifiers include mustard, honey, garlic, and tomato paste.

Another way to fix a broken emulsion is to employ brute force. A powerful stick blender immersed into a ganache can literally whip it back into shape. A curdled buttercream can similarly be fixed by just letting your mixer keep whipping for several minutes. This is actually a combination of brute force and temperature, which is the third method of fixing a broken emulsion; the friction warms up the mixture and the aeration from the whisk keeps the particles in suspension. The first time I tried this I was amazed that the soupy, curdled mess actually returned to a fluffy, smooth state. Sometimes I speed up this solution by heating the outside of the mixing bowl, either with a warm, damp towel or a kitchen torch (a much quicker, if more dangerous, method). Another way to use temperature to repair a broken emulsion is to whisk in ice water or boiling water, depending on why the emulsion broke in the first place.